The Intersection of Art, Architecture, And Photography: The Art Of Felice Varini

Ready to have your mind blown? Check out these installations by Swiss artist Felice Varini, in which he painstakingly paints patterns and designs into enormous spaces in such a way that from one specific angle, they look entirely surreal. This concept is nothing new, (we’ve all seen those chalk drawings on the street) but the scale and size of Varini’s installations is simply incredible. But what does this have to do with photography, you ask?

They are a great example of not only attention to detail and love of craft, but also how a photograph can so easily manipulate reality. Without a camera, these may still be interesting pieces of art, though the mindblowing and brain-fooling effect would be lost. Standing in a three dimensional space would allow you to sense the depth and space of the room, but seeing them in a two dimensional medium removes that sense of depth, and allows our brain to be tricked into seeing something entirely different. This is another reason why, as photographers, we need to be hyper-aware of what a scene will look like when it has been transferred to a two dimensional medium. As an architectural and interior shooter, I deal with this on a regular basis. Some of our staging might look absurd in real life: I’ve even had a few comments from interior designers telling me that I’m ‘ruining their design’ as I shuffle things around. But as soon as they see the resulting photograph, they understand why: some things in three dimensions just don’t translate well to a two dimensional medium.

I would love to see what effect different focal lengths have on the way the camera sees these installations, as well.